this USB/AUX extension to reroute the dash plug and free up the switch slot for something else. Still haven't decided if I'll route it to the console or to the glove box.

Either way, I'd recommend you ensure the head unit can power a USB hard drive and also handle the capacity before you make any mods. I'm sure it'll handle a thumb drive's power needs, but hard drives may be stretching it.

this USB/AUX extension to reroute the dash plug and free up the switch slot for something else. Still haven't decided if I'll route it to the console or to the glove box.

Either way, I'd recommend you ensure the head unit can power a USB hard drive and also handle the capacity before you make any mods. I'm sure it'll handle a thumb drive's power needs, but hard drives may be stretching it.

My wife drives a BMW x3 28i and in the center console, cubby, it has an aux jack and a USB as well as 12 power via a cigarette lighter style jack. I use an external hard drive made from an old laptop drive in a case, I bought it as a kit that came with a cable that runs one USB connector to data and power, but if that isn't enough it has a secondary USB plug on the same cable to boost power. What I would do to the Tacoma is the same. Run an aux jack, a USB jack and then run a 12 power cigarette style outlet, all inside the cubby, just because its easy to do it then than that later. Using a cigarette jack style double usb plug in adapter solves the lack of power for the hard drive and also allows charging of non Q style charging, my phone sits on the Q charger pad and connects via bluetooth.

For future reference: Don't throw those old laptop HDD's away. Buy a case that can plug into USB and have anywhere for a few hundred to a terabyte or two for storage.

Note: I have not, as yet, tried the portable HHD in the TAcoma so when it comes back from the service department, warranty issue, I will update this post.

@skybolt I don't add to my music collection often, so it still fits in a reasonable amount of space despite having started before CDs were available. I just don't see the need to have stuff I don't/won't listen to.

If you're just driving on pavement, an old hdd should be OK but offloading I probably wouldn't use it. The thumb nail sized thumb drive like gpb posted should be great for any case and they are pretty inexpensive.

I guess so with the HDD using discs. I used to use thumb drives until I had a laptop drive with larger capacity sitting around. Now I will look into larger USB thumb drives and having a few of those could hold plenty for trips.

I guess so with the HDD using discs. I used to use thumb drives until I had a laptop drive with larger capacity sitting around. Now I will look into larger USB thumb drives and having a few of those could hold plenty for trips.

Click to expand...

How long are your trips? The $32 flash drive above would hold over 830 hours of 320kbps mp3 files. At 12 hours per day you get nearly 70 days listening time before you have to hear something a second time.

As mentioned before I used to work in remote areas of Australia and that would be months at a time before I got back home. With safety becoming more of a concern to larger mining companies we sometimes had work on a short rotation of 12 weeks on and two weeks off. If not working for those companies we would work until the job was done 7 days a week, could be six months straight with a few days down days for rain or moving camp. We prayed for rain so we could have some down time.

Nowadays, the past 16 years, I work for the Los Angeles county and am home each work day 10 minutes after I finish work. Easy peasy. I am now starting to explore the USA and take long drives. In a few weeks I will be driving to Arches National Park, as I did Zion and Bryce last year and the year before, respectively. Then on to Mesa Verde, Sedona and back home. Yellowstone, and what ever lays in between, will be later in the year. I want to shift back a gear and spend more time outside and in the bush.

I have an extensive and eclectic music collection and store most of it on external drives. I lost 100's of GB's of music once when my laptop crashed and died. I like to keep it all on external drives but I ran out of storage on my 1T drive. I could not carry the CD's I have and it would be too dangerous to try and drive and find what piques my interest at the time. Now I have it split up over a few externals. On long trips I like to carry stuff I might or might not listen to. There many times I listen to music and others I listen to some lectures or audio books.

After a few posts ago I started looking for the larger USB drives and see the price for 128GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1T, 2T are within a price range that is now affordable. These would also be lighter, smaller, and no fear of damage from movement or dust. I will get a 128GB then as the prices drop get a larger one. I just have to work out the max GB that the eTune system will handle without any trouble. Anyone, anyone...

Got a 128GB USB thumb drive from eBay for $8, it arrived yesterday, and it will hold far more than I will listen to on a trip and so I can pick and choose to make sure I get all my music on a couple of them. I should fill it up this weekend as it does take some time to load certain discographies.
After this revelation I am going to swap all me files from the external HDD to thumb drives. Less power consumption (my wife always asks if the HDD is unplugged in her X3 as it stays powered after the rest of her car is powered down, she doesn't want it to flatten her battery or cause a fire), smaller footprint and no cords.

Once I got my Tacoma back I realised it did come with a center console 12v power outlet and I had already put in a double USB charging plug. As mentioned in another post https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/transfer-case-actuator.478065/ I had my truck for 3 days and then it went in for warrenty work. After 2 weeks I got it back yesterday.

Now I'm playing with it again and the next item from the interior that strikes me as needing improvement it the sound system. I will look for other threads for ideas.

I want to pop that rear cover off to mount a power inverter. I tried prying at it a bit but don't want to tear it up. How does it come off? Did you have to remove other parts first? Does it open from the top or bottom? or does that not matter? Thanks

I want to pop that rear cover off to mount a power inverter. I tried prying at it a bit but don't want to tear it up. How does it come off? Did you have to remove other parts first? Does it open from the top or bottom? or does that not matter? Thanks